When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives,
that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. — James 4:3
One of the problems we have with prayer is that we
pray with wrong motives. Obviously, the people that James was writing to were
just like us; we look at God as the divine slot machine in the sky. We pull down
the handle, and hope that He will send us what we ask for. But godly thinkers
pray that God’s will would be done and that His kingdom might come here on
earth. It is the cry of our hearts that the purposes and plans of God might come
to fruition. We must be careful to weigh our motives and requests against what
we know to be God’s kingdom purpose.
God is far more concerned with our character than
with our comfort. His ultimate concern is that we are consumed with His glory in
whatever we are doing. In Psalm 66, David proclaims that God has answered his
request, but he is also careful to say, in verse l8, that if we cherish sin in
our heart, the Lord will not listen. To petition God while we knowingly have a
special, favorite sin in our life, is to devaluate God’s requirements for
holiness. John 3:22 says we receive from Him anything we ask because we obey His
commands and we do what pleases Him.” So we cannot come to God with sin in our
hearts that we are not willing to deal with. We must ask with right motives, we
must pray consistently, and we must believe that He can do things when we ask.